


Syzygy

by ThatwasJustaDream



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-04
Updated: 2015-10-04
Packaged: 2018-04-24 17:26:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4928611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatwasJustaDream/pseuds/ThatwasJustaDream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short scene (with spoilers for S5 &6, I guess) in which a simple crossword puzzle makes Danny suddenly aware of many things that are right in front of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Syzygy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [simplyn2deep](https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplyn2deep/gifts).



> Gifted to SimplyN2Deep for her word of the day contributions at 1_million_words on LJ, and because it's a very Danny story. The word of the day prompt that led to this ficlet was Syzygy. It also fills my weekend challenge prompt, which was 'overwhelmed.'

“Six letters,” Danny muttered to himself, pen hovering over the paperback book of Sudoku and word puzzles Steve had left on the table next to him on the lanai. “An alignment of three celestial objects, as with the sun, the earth, and the full moon…”

Danny only had one letter filled in; a ‘z,’ and it didn’t help much. He set the pen in the book and closed it, taking a break to think about it and rest his eyes.

He was so …drained. Past tired, close to exhaustion, and so overwhelmed that all he could do on this gorgeous Saturday afternoon was lie here. It’s what you got when you tried to balance the busiest, most physically intense month of work they’d had in years with donating actual bone marrow from your own body to your son without taking any time at all recuperate because… you had no time to slow down.

Sure, the 5-0 team had told him to take sick leave, had offered their vacation days but they were only on round three of treatments. It could be five, six more rounds before…. what? Good news? Bad? The worry was enervating, too, if he was honest with himself. The worry was half of it.

 _Jesus,_ how could he complain when Charlie was the one sick?

“You got it, buddy! You’re all over it. You’re gonna be an awesome bat boy. Or maybe run down balls at the pro tennis matches, and then you can learn to play like a pro….” 

Danny smiled through his exhaustion at the sound; Steve encouraging his three year old son, talking to him like he was a little man when, in fact, Charlie was so tiny he was still much more interested in chasing after the bean bags Steve and Grace were lobbing at a target than in throwing any for himself. 

Steve and Grace tossed them and Charlie chased them and they’d killed forty minutes like that, giving Danny a rest. Danny had caught bits of Steve talking with Grace as they did; asking her about her school year so far and the cross-country team. 

The sun, the earth and the moon, Danny thought, watching them for a moment more and then closing his eyes again. 

There was no doubt Grace was his sun. She would be his brilliant raison d’etre until she was an adult and …then he would have a breakdown, but he would do it – he would stand back and let go and love her just as much but from a non-smothering distance. No matter how hard it was.

Charlie? Yes, he was his sweet little moonchild that he never knew he had; calm and solemn, serious and so damn cute. An ethereal light all his own Danny was learning to love deeply. How could he not?

That would make Steve his Earth, which… well, that was where the parallel fell apart, right? 

“Woah, it’s okay it’s all right – you just got your feet tangled, that’s all…” Charlie was crying, flat out and Steve was trotting over the lawn to him. “C’mon, kiddo…shake it off, you’re good…”

Danny was ready to try to push himself up and off the lounger to go to them, but then he sank back; Steve had this under control, was scooping Charlie up and jogging around the lawn holding him like an airplane, making sounds like a prop plane sputtering until Charlie was both crying and laughing and had forgotten about falling down.

If Steve wasn’t his world….who was?

Danny knew he wouldn’t even _have_ Charlie this weekend if it weren’t for Steve; he’d confided to him how upset he was that he was going to have to turn down his first chance to have both his kids with him on a weekend because of his stress level and Steve had suggested this - spending all day Saturday with him, maybe Chin and Kono and Adam over for dinner, grill up some food and hang out. Lots of extra arms to hold Charlie, and to get them all home and tucked in at Danny’s Saturday night. Then he’d only have a few hours to deal with it all solo.

“ _Crap_ ….” Danny felt a wave of something – realization and thankfulness and … _amusement blended with sorrow_ – wash over him like one of the waves on the beach.

There really should be a word for that: Five letters, the feeling inspired by it dawning on you that a huge, oblivious goofball has become your terra firma and he doesn’t even get it. That you mean it when you say you love him….or how much you mean it.

Panic. He knew the answer to that question: Panic. 

Danny was up and in the house fast; more quickly than he’d thought he could get up, today, because apparently almost breaking out in tears on your best friend’s porch gave you energy. He got a glass of water and drank it slowly; thought about the lanai again, but that wasn’t going to cut it. 

He had to sleep.

He tried the spare room and Mary’s room, but the beds were full of books and cd boxes; Steve must be doing a fall house cleaning. He looked at the couch, but it wasn’t, he knew, the most comfortable for napping and if he didn’t sleep now… he was so done.

He looked up the stairs and back out at the lawn where their voices were mingling, the three of them having fun once again and… he climbed the stairs.

~*~

“Hey, Danno, you here? You with me?”

Danny wasn’t sure he’d call it waking up, but he …surfaced. Felt fingertips tracing his forehead, his cheek. 

“Yeaaaup…mmmmhhmmm…am….” 

“It’s okay, go back to sleep if you want,” Steve said; Steve who was sitting next to him on his own bed, not even asking Danny ‘what the hell are you doing here?’ just talking at him slow and low. “It’s four thirty, okay? We’re firing up the grill. Grace and Kono and Adam are out swimming. Chin and I will get the food going. I’ll come get you in an hour? Don’t want you to miss it.”

“Ummmm, yuuuh….” or something like it came out of his mouth, and he turned away from the fingers still touching him, not ready to wake up more.

He felt paralyzed, but also, somehow like another hour would do it; he could stumble down the stairs then and join them and have a bite. He’d feel a little like hell and overly emotional all the rest of the damn weekend, but…that was probably always going to be the case. 

And he’d have them all around him: His sun, his moon and his Earth.  
~*~

Halfway through eating dinner on the beach, all ten of them around a bonfire (Grover, his wife, and Jerry had swung by, too), Danny had remembered it: The light trace of lips over his eyebrow as he had sunk back into sleep. The press of a mouth, twice.

His head flew up at the recollection, eyes seeking out Steve - who was in deep conversation with Adam at the moment. Steve never lost the thread of his conversation, but the way his own eyes darted to the sand and over to Danny before darting away?

Maybe, Danny thought, he was someone’s terra firma, too….


End file.
